I’ve been doing laundry by hand for a few years now. I thought I’d talk about the different methods I use and how well they’ve worked for me.
I learned to do laundry on a washboard from my Great Aunt when I was quite young. I like this good old fashioned method, but raking fabric across textured steel is understandably hard on your clothes. I’ve been saving this only for the real dirty stuff, like clothes I’ve worn out in the garden. I do a REAL good job of throwing myself into my work so it looks a lot like a wallow in the dirt while I’m out there and the clothes need serious help.
I picked up a Wonder Clean a little over a year ago. It’s the Lehmans version of a Wonder Wash. This is a nice little contraption mainly marketed towards campers and RVers. It saves a lot of time and muscle power. The problem is I’ve found it’s only really useful for very light duty work. This is my choice for washing my office clothes each week, which just need refreshing but aren’t actually soiled. I can fit 5 plus sized tops and 5 pair of underwear in it at a time. The skirts I simply wash less often as they don’t really encounter dirt of sweat when I’m sitting in a cube all day.
This week I got a Rapid Washer. I’ll need a bit more time to see just how well it works for everything, but thus far it looks like it’ll be my recommendation for all around usefulness. It agitates the clothing much better than the other methods and adds the novelty of allowing me to do my wash outdoors. It also gives the neighbors the opportunity to say “I told you so, that backwards neighbor finally lost it completely! Look what she’s over there doing now.”
In winter, it’d work just fine if I set my wash buckets up in the bathtub to catch any splashing. I think it’s also my answer for doing large items like sheets, as I can just throw those directly in the tub and use this plunger washer in there. Bedding is the one thing I haven’t been able to manage to do by hand, and have been taking them to my parents when I go to visit 
Do you do laundry by hand? I’ve love to hear your experiences!
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